91Èȱ¬

Good morning.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Ìý

This is the time of year for moving on.Ìý When the sun shines, and the trees are in leaf, the For Sale signs start going up. ÌýÌý

Ìý

I was eight when we moved into a big stone house in the countryside.Ìý One hot summer’s day, our advance party of assorted children and aunts, and a toddler in a buggy, arrived to clean the house.Ìý ÌýI remember trekking up the quiet country road from the solitary bus stop, carrying brushes, dusters, bin bags, thermos flasks and sandwiches.Ìý We didn’t know exactly where the house was, since none of the roads had names, but at the top of a long, winding hill we finally saw it: grey stone, sitting in a sea of trees, surrounded by green fields, with a white farmhouse off to the left.

Ìý

There was a broken cattle grid across front of the drive, and an old rusty gate.Ìý And inside, thrillingly and horribly, the house was full of bluebottles. ÌýIn every room as we clattered up and down the bare wooden stairs, we found them, dead in black heaps on the window sills.

Ìý

I remember it as the beginning of our chapter in the life of the house.Ìý And now, forty six years later, with our parents gone, it’s ending.Ìý We’ve started a different clearing out.Ìý Every single book, photograph, curtain, battered toy, old school jotter, hideous shirt from the 70s – they’re all infused with memory, sound, smell. ÌýAnd they hold on hard.

Ìý

This letting go of place, and home, is a wrench.Ìý ÌýBut it’s a gift, too.Ìý It opens up the box of the past, and you can carry whatever you like away with you. ÌýYou can revisit the times which have shaped you.

Ìý

God, you span our past, present and future. Your love is unchanging, as the world moves on. ÌýAmen.